


Things to Burn in Effigy

by Anonymous



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22988284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15
Collections: Anonymous, Purimgifts 2020





	Things to Burn in Effigy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lea_hazel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lea_hazel/gifts).



The officer training materials _Mercy of Kalr_ sent Queter started with instructions on how to lead a Radchaai morning prayer, and didn’t get better from there. 

It wasn’t just the religion—though there was certainly enough of that—it was the sheer Radchaai-defaultness of the whole package. Officers drank tea to the exclusion of all other beveridges, started their work shift hours after waking up, _bathed_ in a specific ritual manner. Three pages into a document detailing specific rules for offering clientage to enlisted soldiers after a term of service ended, Queter gave up.

Queter turned to one of _Sphene’s_ video pickups, then remembered that she had implants now and _Sphene_ could hear her anywhere in an approximately ten thousand kilometer sphere, “How long did I waste on this bullshit?”

“About two hours.”

She leaned back in her chair, “What I want to know is whether the person who wrote this wanted to force me to be  _ Radchaai _ , or whether they didn’t even imagine that a ‘provincial’ would read this in the first place."

“I warned you that it wasn’t worth your time.”

Queter shrugged, “Still better than most of the entertainments we get out here. What’s next on our to-do list?”

“We’re fixing the matter printer. Station’s getting sick of constant requests for parts.” That last was delivered with drawling sarcasm—Station had been sick of _Sphene’s_ requests for parts for more than a month, now, and had taken several opportunities to make it known.

The matter printer was, blessedly, located well away from _Sphene’s_ hull. It had failed due to simple wear and tear, and while the parts were well outside Radchaai specifications, it would be easy enough to use the military grade matter printers on Station to fabricate new ones. At least, it should have been.

“18.355 milimeters,” Queter reported, “and remind me again why you deleted the models for these parts?”

“I didn’t delete them, actually. Files stored in the aft memory bank were corrupted at some point. Recovery is on the to-do list, item number 314.”

“Right. 402.134 milimeters, visible wear on this one.” Queter turned to her pile of parts and found her workbench blank, “And that’s everything I needed to measure today.” She walked across the room, to where Sphene’s ancillary was cleaning thousand-year-old lubricant from some more salvageable pieces, and laid a hand on its shoulder, “If Station can get them all printed by tomorrow morning, we can be done by lunch.”

 _Sphene_ was never quite as good as masking her emotions as the fleet captain or the other ancillaries Queter had run into. Or, perhaps, she simply didn’t feel the need. The ancillary’s shoulder tensed under Queter’s hand, then relaxed. 

“Do you have plans tonight?”

“I’m bringing my ancillary to the bad movie marathon on _Mercy of Kalr_ and running diagnostics on the fire suppression system. Plenty of processing power to spare if you need help with a project.”

“Hm. I was thinking about test pieces for the printer.”

“I have a suggestion,” _Sphene_ offered, and projected the model into Queter’s vision. It was a stylized doll of Anaander Miaanai, carefully flagged as flammable

Queter laughed, “Fire suppression, right. Do you think you can print some of those officer training manuals to burn too?” 


End file.
